PhotoDisc GettyImages Test Image
DOWNLOAD PDI Color Calibration Target Photos

Faces from PhotoDisc Series #16 "Everyday People" photographed by Barbara Penoyar.

by Gary Ballard, San Diego, USA

I've found several free professional digital reference images and "how to" articles on the Web, but believe this famous PhotoDisc® Getty Images target with young girl, three baby faces and neutral grey ramp, are the best reference image test files available to visually evaluate and troubleshoot digital color on the monitor, Internet and printed media under Adobe® CS6 color Mac® OSX and Windows® XP Vista Windows 7 8 operating systems.

This expert Photoshop layout is extremely useful for quickly evaluating monitor profiles in Adobe® Photoshop®, including verifying printing profiles, color management settings in apps, Web browsers and desktop publishing work flows — the PhotoDisc Image (PDI) has easily become my creative studio's standard reference image.

TIPS & THEORY | SOURCE> MONITOR | SOURCE> PRINTER | DOWNLOADS (color management test files)

My best online COLOR MANAGEMENT TUTORIAL sets up these five PhotoDisc reference photos on a brilliant Web tutorial and explains the nuts and bolts of embedding, stripping and targeting ICC profiles while effectively demonstrating these top RGB color profiles in action — why sRGB is the ONLY profile you should be using on the Web.

See my BASIC PHOTOSHOP COLOR MANAGEMENT THEORY for more detailed information covering easy-to-understand concepts about how to use the PDI color targets to test and rule out various color management system (CMS) settings and about HOW TO MAKE PRINTS MATCH MONITOR in professional desktop publishing and multimedia production environments.

DARK PRINTS — One of the most common complaints is "my prints are too dark" and most people recommend "your monitor is too bright (turn down your display's brightness)." Well, I like a brighter monitor (luminance 120 to 140 cd/m2) and setting brightness below 100 cd/m2 luminance appears unappealing to my eyes.

One known Epson bug that causes dark prints using PHOTOSHOP MANAGES COLORS, COLOR MODE OFF (No Color Management) has to do with checking "16 bit output" in the print driver....

While brightness is certainly one area to look at, I would think a monitor would have to be extremely bright for that to be the main culprit — more likely a monitor problem rests in your source file(s), it actually is on the dark side (or your settings or profiles are off).

OUT OF GAMUT COLORS — Another common complaint is "some colors in my prints look dull or changed compared to my monitor." Source images typically contain "out of gamut" colors or contrasty characteristics that a monitor or printer cannot possibly reproduce 100 percent... (or your settings or profiles are off).

These PDI reference images greatly reduce these two common variables because they have been professionally optimized for correct brightness, contrast and minimized gamut issues.

IF YOUR PRINTER IS NOT PRINTING YOUR DIGITAL COLOR CORRECTLY, AND YOU WANT TO TEST IF IT IS YOUR FAULT OR THEIRS:

Include a copy of the Tagged sRGB.jpg image in the print order to check if they are printing sRGB correctly. If it does not come back printed proper, then I know the printer has a problem. If it is printed proper — but my Photoshop monitor looks off — then I know I have a bad monitor profile to troubleshoot.

My small local neighborhood photo printer consistantly delivers excellent printed color from my sRGB images — so should Costco, Walmart, Walgreens, Target, Snapfish, SmugMug, Shutterfly, Mpix, AdoramaPix, and any of the best online photo services (if their workflow is good).

Just be sure to Convert your images to sRGB (if they are not already in sRGB) — and if you want YOUR color — instruct your printer to "turn off all auto color settings in their software, and just print the photos as is with no adjustments."

What seems to confuse most people about the "how-to-make-the-print-match-the-monitor" process is when the image looks good on their monitor, but their print doesn't match.

Remember the PDI photos contain theoretical "true color" — the monitor profile has zero to do with how the image prints — so the problem then points to the printer profile or printer settings.

I set up a basic PHOTOSHOP PRINTING TUTORIAL outlining a proven "Photoshop Manages Colors" work flow, including extensive troubleshooting tips & techniques.

If the PDI color is displaying correctly in Photoshop, but your other image(s) is not displaying so good, the problem is likely a Source Profile issue (the wrong profile being applied to your image), or it actually has the problems Photoshop is showing you.

It is pretty common for even experienced users to create over-saturated, out-of-gamut colors or subtle tones in their RGB images that don't translate well to certain inksets or papers (substrates). Balancing digital color for professional looking results is a craft and an art, and it requires some experience, trial and error on your part.

But again, the PDI images have been professionally optimized to exclude those types of issues — trust Photoshop and the PDI targets to show you what's really going on with your setup.

THE PROPER TOOLS:
Photoshop "Soft Proofing" and "Gamut Warning":

My best advice is to train your eye to trust the quality hardware-calibrated Photoshop monitor, and learn how to interpret what you see with your own eyes — configuring a couple settings on your printer should be the easy part.

iPhotoTESTfolder contains a low-resolution 72 ppi collection of ten files of one image in various common Color Spaces, in tagged/untagged states, designed to PROOF how the different profiles, color spaces, 2.2 and 1.8 MONITOR GAMMAS and COLOR GAMUTS react in various computer programs and picture viewers.

Moving this series of ten .jpg photos into picture viewers like Bridge, iPhoto, Aperture, Windows Picture Managers, Windows Explorer, Lightroom, Microsoft Word, Finder, Apple's Preview.app should be enlightening for how the different RGB color spaces, gammas and color gamuts react in the various operating systems and apps.

iPhotoTESTfolder files are included with the above "DOWNLOAD all" folders.

iPHOTO Test Files also reference my Assign Versus Convert Photoshop Tutorial. Now with Pro Photo and Whacked RGB:

DOWNLOAD iPhotoTESTfolder.zip
(14MB) for PC and Mac OS-X.

Here are my iPhoto Tutorial images set up in a color-managed picture viewer (Adobe Bridge screen capture):

NOTE:

• TAGGED (left column): All the tagged files appear identical in the left column (Bridge read the embedded profile and correctly Converted them to Monitor RGB for True Color display).
  
  
• UNTAGGED (right column): The un-tagged set in the right column all had Bridge's default profile (sRGB) automatically applied/assumed/assigned, so they all displayed incorrectly except for sRGB (sRGB is Bridge's default profile).

Does Bridge display sRGB previews?
How do color-managed picture viewers work?

It was suggested on the Adobe color management forum that Bridge Converts original Tagged source documents to sRGB (Source>sRGB) and saves preview images in its cache — then Bridge uses its sRGB preview images and Converts them to the monitor profile for display (sRGB>MonitorRGB). This appeared to be observable, but I am not 100-percent positive this is how Bridge works and was not curious enough to test it myself.

A good point to make here is if Photoshop is displaying wide-gamut color spaces (ProPhotoRGB, AdobeRGB) a bit differently differently than your color-managed picture viewer — Bridge, Lightroom, iPhoto, Aperture — trace the color-management chain to see what's going on, if your viewer is performing a true Source> Monitor Profile conversion, or if it is using sRGB preview images from its cache...